Music in The Architect of Ruins, a postmodern novel by Herbert Rosendorfer
Journal Title: Notes Muzyczny - Year 2019, Vol 1, Issue 11
Abstract
Herbert Rosendorfer’s work entitled The Architect of Ruins fits in the postmodern novel trend. Its connections with culture texts include references to literary texts and music pieces. The most important references of the first type seem to be the ones to Jan Potocki’s novel The Saragossa Manuscript. The existence of music compositions in the novel by Rosendorfer, a witter and a musicologist in one person, functions on a number of levels. Here it is worth to mention the concept coined by the Polish scholar Michał Głowiński according to which music may appear in a novel on three levels – when it is an element of the plot, when it constitutes a topic by itself, and when the work of music referred to acquires a symbolic dimension in the context of a music piece. These three literary situations can easily be found in Rosendorfer’s book. What is particularly important and interesting, however, is applying a construction pattern taken from the field of music in a literary work. Such a possibility, i.e., musical elements functioning in in a literary piece, is described in Andrzej Hejmej’s Musicality of a Literary Work. In The Architect of Ruins construction references fit in the specificity of a postmodern novel: as stated by Magdalena Janoszka, Potocki’s The Saragossa Manuscript, which was an important inspiration for Rosendorfer, should be classified as a polyphonic novel. According to Bachtin’s concept, a word does not a exist in an isolated and independent way, but it is an answer to other words written in the past. As a writer and musicologist, Rosendorfer skilfully moves in the field of references to music and literary works – e.g. Mozart’s Don Giovanni and the literary thread of Giacomo Casanova’s Memoirs. In his book, the Austrian writer presents the profiles of musicians – a virtuoso (whom music lovers are desperate to hear live – in vain), an organist performing a truly postmodern Musiquiana, and a vampiric composer stealing every new composition written by his student. This way, in The Architect of Ruins music becomes the material with which the author of the novel co-creates his work as if with literary motifs.<br/><br/>
Authors and Affiliations
Agnieszka Roguska
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP641092
- DOI 10.5604/01.3001.0013.3526
- Views 55
- Downloads 0
Scriabin – piano music in the context of the composer’s creative ideology. Part 2
The article is the second part of the text devoted to the profile and piano works of Alexander Scriabin. The composer had an extraordinary piano talent and the ability of coloured hearing. He worked out an innovative mus...
Viola d’amore w XVII i XVIII, cz. I
Viola d’amore to instrument z grupy chordofonów smyczkowych, który powstał w XVII wieku. Posiada on cechy budowy charakterystyczne dla violi da gamba, natomiast technika gry i sposób trzymania instrumentu bliższe są skrz...
Baroque suite as a construction scheme in Jonathan Littell’s novel "The Kindly Ones"
Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones), a novel honoured with prestigious prizes, is an interesting attempt to tell a story of World War II and the Extermination from the standpoint of a former SS office...
Splendor i Blask Baroku. Projekt Międzyuczelnianej Orkiestry Barokowej 12–17 marca 2018 r.
W dniach 12–17 marca 2018 roku odbyła się IV już edycja projektu Międzyuczelnianej Orkiestry Barokowej MUOB. Kolejny raz spotkali się studenci klas instrumentów dawnych z Akademii Muzycznych Poznania, Wrocławia i Łodzi....
Veni Creator op. 103 and Sonate de Requiem op. 283 for cello and piano by Olivier Greif, i.e., homo musicus in search of the total form
The article was written on the basis of the interpretation issues its author came across while preparing for the Polish first performance of Veni Creator and the second premiere of Sonate de Requiem (the first one took p...